Why you really can't always believe what you read in the news…

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“People should take better care of their health!” says private healthcare company

Constant tiredness means we’re useless at work, with nearly 10% of people saying they do ‘barely anything’ when they’re exhausted.

Everyone has, on occasion, turned up at work after a late night feeling rather the worse for wear. But now, a new study has revealed that the problem is endemic in Britain’s workplaces. It revealed 57 per cent of people have turned up for work feeling tired on at least one occasion in the last three months.

Some 20 per cent of these employees said their tiredness was due to socialising and drinking, 18 per cent said they had staying up late watching TV and seven per cent admit they had spent too long playing computer games.

And this is bad news for employers – 52 per cent of the people surveyed admitted that their exhaustion affected their performance at work and six per cent admitted they ‘barely did anything’ at work when they were tired.

Clearly a failure to properly look after one’s health can have serious repurcussions for the nation’s workforce – and the nation’s employers, too. If only something could be done to help employees take better care of themselves, perhaps something akin to a private healthcare service:

The research, from AXA PPP healthcare, also found 40 per cent of people say that if they are tired they ‘coast’ through the day only doing easy tasks and 18 per cent said they only managed to do ‘bits and pieces’.

The breadth of the statistics behind this story are interesting, and worth taking a look at – not least the relationship between the headline’s “Constant tiredness” and the quoted statistic showing the majority of people have felt tired at work at least once in the last three months. If ‘at least once in three months’ is the new definition of ‘constant’, I’m sure there are a lot of people feeling much better about their lives – by those definitions, most of us are constantly exercising and constantly on holiday, which I imagine makes for quite a nice lifestyle, all things considered.

Unfortunately we’re also relentlessly being checked up by the dentist and, given the national averages of sick days taken per year, we’re constantly unwell. The latter of those may explain why ACA PPP healthcare are so keen for us to sign up.